Keith Olbermann: Not Worth It

Keith Olbermann is a talented television man. He's agile with words. He's whip-smart, an often penetrating thinker, and seems able to strike the perfect on-air balance between smoldering outrage and smirking "What are we doing here, folks?" acknowledgment of some of television's absurdities. Still. If you are a TV executive who hires this man, you are a fucking idiot.

Last year, Keith Olbermann left MSNBC because—long story short, here—Keith Olbermann is a petulant, spoiled child. (This is not to say that there is nothing wrong with the cable news business itself; it's simply to point out that Keith Olbermann is a buffoon with a near-complete lack of self-awareness whose own diva-like behavior has left a trail of enemies at various networks in his wake.) He took a job at tiny Current TV. And what is happening this week, do you wonder? Yes, that's right, Keith Olbermann is locked in a "falling out" with the network, a "rift" that could, potentially, mark the end of Olbermann's very short time there. He is reportedly upset about Current's cheap production values, as well as his own "level of influence" at the network. Olbermann's own PR campaign consists, as usual, of him making snide remarks to random Americans, on Twitter.

Keith Olbermann has done something rather spectacular: he has made cable television executives into sympathetic characters. They have to deal with Keith Olbermann's bullshit, after all. The details of each particular self-entitled tantrum aren't really important; the salient fact is that this will never stop. This is how Keith Olbermann is. If you hire him, this is what you will get. He has some redeeming qualities, yes. He has, within him, the ability to be a great TV newsman. Sadly, his ego will never let that happen. It's time to just... let him go.